Well well well - look what's here; it's White Dwarf and it's early... WHAAAA?!As you may have noticed, we haven't done a White Dwarf review for some time, basically because it comes out in the shops before our subscription gets here.Games Workshop have pretty much put the blame on Australia Post, until a conversation last month where we pointed out to them that it takes more than a week to get from them to a house if you're using the cheapest postage rate. Well it looks like them posting it when they should have has worked and we now have a White Dwarf, a full 24 hours before shelf date - the excitement is palpable, if the word "excitement" is appropriate...With Chapter Approved on the horizon for this week, plus the imminent release of 8th Edition Codex for two fo the founding Space Marine Chapters of Warhammer 40K, one would think that these would be the focus of this issue, well Padwan, we were both wrong! ++More After The Jump++

So lets dive into this large issue - extra thick, extra juicy!Planet Warhammer is all the new stuff coming this month, and the afore-mentioned Chapter Approved gets a bit of a look in here, but we really only get a double page and most of that is a truncated Designers Notes, which is fine, but this is supposed to be a major release, so this is a bit disappointing. There's also a double page on the two Angels of Death Codexes - Dark Angels and Blood Angels plus Datacards and themed dice. Seems like there's a theme running through these books about the adoption of Primaris Marines into their ranks - the Dark Angels do not want to play nice in the sandpit, while the Blood Angels are very happy to have them on board, but the new initiates do not suffer the curses of the Blood Angels Chapter. It would be a shame to get rid of these flaws, as they add character to the units and over all feel, or maybe Girly-man just wants to have a whole of lot of red Ultramarines. Personally I think there is going to be a schism between the Primaris and the Space Marines, and this is the build up. Speaking of Angels of Death, there's two Primaris characters (thankfully not at the same price as recent Primaris characters) coming - a Dark Angels Lieutenant and a Blood Angels Lieutenant, plus a Primaris Upgrade set for each Chapter too..Have to say, the price on these Upgrade sets is great!Now there's been some fuss about the new Easy To Build range, which on face value seems silly, but when you see the miniatures are around half the price of the multi-pose versions, this does seem a reasonable way to add some minis to your force. Here we see Primaris Aggressors and the Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought. But they're not the only new Easy To Builds, there's also the Myphitic Blight-Hauler)which is super cheap) and probably the worst Nurgle miniatures you will ever see in Lord Felthius and Taninted Cohort. God they're awful! The infamous Imperial Guard character Sly Marbo makes a return, with a reasonably priced figure and we get yet another Stormcast, this time it's Lord-Celestant Sureheart who is doing the best impression of the Emperor's Children Primarch you ever will see! Like all Stormcast, he is nearly double the price of Sly Marbo.There;s a new card game coming out too - what's with this Pokemon-like obsession with card games? This one is called Warhammer 40,000 Combat Cards. Woop-dee doo!Hey look - it's The Hobbit, yes these duedes get some reinforcements, with the Lords of Erebor double pack of Thror and Thrain, plus Master of Lake-Towen & Alfrid.-There's quite a bit of Blood Bowl news, and sadly there seems to be no more Blood Bowl section, so it's bundled into Planet Warhammer now! The Elf team is finally here in the form of the Elfheim Eagles, there's the Blood Bowl Almanac on the way which collects Death Zones Seasons One & Two, plus the rules from White Dwarf which would be a really great resource for any player, some Team Cards for the Human, Orc and Elf teams, plus a set of Elf dugouts and a themed pitch!Nice to see some movement on the Blood Bowl front, but is it a little to o late?-The Forge World section this month is all about Red Scorpions, with two very cool releases - a big character dreadnought and what is effectively a Command unit.Red Scorpions kind of passed us by, but their background is great - anything in the Badab War is great!!-In video game news, there's some great shots from the new version of Space Hulk_Deathwing which includes all the downloadable content as standard. This is also now available on Xbox One and PS4! Freeblade gets some new weapons & skins and news that Dawn of War 3 is now on Linux & Mac!-Finally for the Planet Warhammer section, there's new books - Colonel Gaunt is back in The Warmaster, and the others pictured we have already seen released.

Temproral Distrort (not pictured) looks back at October 1999's White Dwarf, which saw the launch of Mordheim - an game with some pretty awesome miniatures!-The New Rules section concentrates on Hammerhal and the inclusion of mercenaries - a large part of the fantasy fluff of most games systems. Games Workshop have toyed with it in the past, even bringing out Regiments of Renown for Warhammer. Some great minis too! Now these rules give you a few characters and also a look at adventures in Cinderfall-Classic 2017 are the winners of three of the categories in Golden Demon 2017 - Single Miniature, Warhammer 40k Vehicle and Duel! -Now we didn't mention this at the top, but this issue has Battle Reports in it - in fact it has one for The Hobbit, Age of $igmar, a long one for Necromunda and one for 40K. If you like Battle Reports, then pick your poison. have to say, not a huge fan of how these are set out. -Building Your Deck takes a look at how to play Pokemon with Warhammer miniatures - no but seriously Warhammer Underhives uses cards, so this helps you design the best deck.-Now this is something to get onto - using Genestealer Cults in Space Hulk! This is classic White Dwarf content - take a game and add elements to it. This is awesome! There's stats and a mission, so get on it-More Blood Bowl action, this time on Running A Successful League! Blood Bowl is cool, and this is a good way to look at running a great set of games with your friends

Illuminations (not pictured) which looks at the cities of Seasons of War: Firestorm from Age of $igmar. Some beautiful art here and an overview by artist Paul Dainton.-Now this is a handy section, The Model Photograph. We suggested this some time ago so lovely to see it in the magazine as so many of us now take photos of our minis. I'm shit at it, but these tips could ba handy. These tips are however for DSLR cameras, not point and shoot, but maybe some of the principles will still be the same even if the camera setting won't be as good. They do go into the camera phone though! I did find this section had some assumed knowledge in there, but hopefully once the camera is out, it will be clearer.-Now here is some awesome work - Armies on Parade 2017. It seems that in the UK and US, not only are the individual miniatures amazing, but the scale of these scenes is awesome. Stormcast, Eldar (with a really deep amazing red scheme that started with a purple base and of course... an airbrush!), ice cold Tau (pictured), and beautiful Seraphon! Come on GW, make some new minis for Seraphon troops - I want to build an army! -Blanchitsu is the gift that keeps on giving and today it's Jake Ozga's Age of $igmar warband. Now I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Jake is a fan of the art of an RPG called Symbaroum, because this warband really reminds me of the lighting in that book and the dark forest dwellers. Amazing work!-Cegorach's Revenge is Gavin Beardsmore's Harlequin force. Severely restricted palette or muted oranges and reds gives them quite a different look.-Paint Splatter is quite handy, giving the basics for doing Blood Angels and Dark Angels as well as faces. This has to be the 400th sightly different scheme for both. When I first started 40K, the Blood Angels were a terracotta colour not a bright red and Dark Angels were black! Anyway, that's another story :)-Reader's Models of course has some nice minis, including some insane shading on some Sons of Horus dreadnoughts and a jaw-dropping Eldar Scorpion grav-tank. very cool!-There's then four pages of In The Bunker (not pictured)that tells us absolutely nothing. It's internal newsletter stuff - we don't want or need to know!

++Verdict++

Again it feels like the really juicy stuff is glossed over - Chapter Approved and the Angels of Death Codexes gave a great opportunity to explore fluff and really tease us with possibilities. I expected to break out our Terran Dark Angels again, but alas, we are lost to multiple battle reports. There is some other handy stuff like Paint Splatter and the photography section, but again it feels like the balance is off. Where's the studio teams Necromunda gangs, or the new terrain put to the test with different painting styles?Don't know - it didn't quite hit the spot, but not terrible either.Just happy to not get it two weeks after it comes out on the shelves!

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In a time before 40k, there was a band of men and women who took part in gaming without the corporate sensibilities of today. Take a step back with us and also look upon the future through wizened eyes and curious ponderings of The Beardy Hammer!